eInside Briefs

WKSU Honored With 13 Awards From the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists

Kabir Bhatia named best reporter in Ohio

WKSU received 13 awards from Ohio chapters of the
Society of Professional Journalists. WKSU
Reporter/Producer Kabir Bhatia also received the
Best Reporter in Ohio award.

WKSU has received 13 Ohio SPJ Awards from Ohio chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). The competition recognized station staff for work. Standout awards for WKSU included Best Reporter in Ohio for Reporter/Producer Kabir Bhatia. Awards were presented on Saturday, Oct. 25, during a ceremony in Cleveland at PlayhouseSquare’s Westfield Insurance Studio.

Since the addition of broadcast categories in 1998, WKSU has been recognized with more Ohio SPJ awards than any other radio news outlet. WKSU competes in the Ohio SPJ contest with radio stations and journalists from media markets throughout Ohio and stations broadcasting to Ohio from surrounding states.

Bhatia has been a member of the WKSU news staff since 2010. A Hudson native, he is a Kent State University graduate. As a Kent State student, Bhatia served as a WKSU student assistant, working in the newsroom and for production.

WKSU was runner-up for Best of Show categories, Best News Operation and Best Anchor for Amanda Rabinowitz.

WKSU winners of 2014 Ohio SPJ Awards are:

• Best of Show – Best Reporter in Ohio, Reporter/Producer Kabir Bhatia (body of work — 2013)
• First Place – Best Continuing Coverage, Senior Reporter Tim Rudell for “Fracking”
• First Place – Best General Assignment Reporting, Tim Rudell for “A Homegrown Revival of the Rubber Industry”
• First Place – Best Medical/Science Reporting, Reporter/Producer Jeff St. Clair for “Exploradio: Engineering a Chiari Breakthrough”
• First Place – Best Spot News, Reporter/Producer M.L. Schultze for “Canton Evacuees Get the All Clear”
• Second Place – Best News Operation, WKSU news staff
• Second Place – Best Anchor, Reporter/Anchor Amanda Rabinowitz for Morning Edition
• Second Place – Best Website, IT Director Chuck Poulton for www.wksu.org
• Second Place – Best Consumer Reporting, Kabir Bhatia for “Ohio Theatres Make the Drive Toward Digital”
• Second Place – Best Environment Reporting, Jeff St. Clair for “Exploradio: Saving America’s Most Endangered Animals”
• Second Place – Best Feature Reporting, M.L. Schultze for “Gray’s Armory”
• Second Place – Best General Assignment Reporting, Reporter/Producer Kevin Niedermier for “Building on the Success of the National Senior Games”
• Second Place – Best Minority Reporting, Amanda Rabinowitz for “Recent Hate Crimes Have the LGBT Community on Edge”
  

The 2014 Ohio SPJ Awards competition honors print and broadcast journalists from Ohio and bordering states who best served the public interest in 2013. The awards, which are presented by the Cincinnati, Central Ohio and Cleveland professional chapters of the SPJ, were judged by members of SPJ chapters throughout the U.S. 

WKSU is an award-winning public radio station and service of Kent State that broadcasts to 22 counties in Northeast Ohio from the station’s primary signal at 89.7. WKSU content can also be heard over WKRW 89.3 (Wooster), WKRJ 91.5 (Dover/New Philadelphia), WKSV 89.1 (Thompson), WNRK 90.7 (Norwalk) and W239AZ 95.7 (Ashland). The station adds WKSU-2 Folk Alley, WKSU-3 The Classical Channel and WKSU-4 The News Channel over HD Radio and as streaming audio at www.wksu.org.

Kent State Partners With Portage County Health Department and EMA on Disaster Simulation Exercise, Nov. 13 and 18

Kent State University’s College of Nursing and College of
Public Health will collaborate with the Portage County
Health Department and the Emergency Management
Agency to stage a disaster simulation exercise at the
Student Recreation and Wellness Center.

Kent State University’s College of Nursing and College of Public Health are collaborating with the Portage County Health Department and the Emergency Management Agency (EMA) to stage a disaster simulation exercise. The “Point-of-Dispensing Exercise,” which involves a mock Anthrax release, triage and treatment site, will take place Thursday, Nov. 13, and Tuesday, Nov. 18, from 8 a.m. to noon at the Student Recreation and Wellness Center.

The mock exercise allows the Portage County Health Department and the EMA to test the effectiveness of Portage County’s disaster plan. The event also offers training for Kent State community health nursing and public health students. Volunteers from the Medical Reserve Corps and Kent State faculty, staff and students will participate by acting as victims going through the triage and treatment stations during the simulation exercise. 

“This disaster simulation exercise is an excellent opportunity for nursing students to practice their triage and screening skills in a real-life situation and in a community setting,” says Pamela Rafferty-Semon, M.S.N., RN and lecturer at Kent State’s College of Nursing.

“This is a great learning experience to see how the incident command system goes into effect during a disaster event, and how local partners and agencies work to help people who are impacted by a disaster,” says John Staley, Ph.D., assistant professor in Kent State’s College of Public Health.

For more information about the Portage County Health Department, visit www.co.portage.oh.us/healthdepartment.htm.

For more information about Kent State’s College of Nursing, visit http://www2.kent.edu/nursing/.

For more information about Kent State’s College of Public Health, visit http://www2.kent.edu/publichealth/.

Kent State Invites Community to Provide Input for Airport Master Plan

A public meeting for the Kent State University Airport
Master Plan will take place Nov. 20 from 6-8 p.m. at
Stow-Munroe Falls High School, located at 3227 Graham
Road in Stow, Ohio. 

The second public meeting for the Kent State University Airport Master Plan, a public open house, has been scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 20, from 6-8 p.m. at Stow-Munroe Falls High School, located at 3227 Graham Road in Stow, Ohio. The first public meeting was held last year to introduce the project to the community and seek input about the airport’s future.

In this meeting, the public will have an opportunity to review and provide comments on the alternatives’ development for evaluation. Informational displays will be set up explaining updated elements of the project, and project staff will be available to answer questions. 

Attendees may share comments about the project directly with the staff members or they may submit feedback in writing. Written comments will be accepted through Nov. 30, 2014, and may be sent to Aileen Maguire Meyer, C&S Engineers Inc., 20445 Emerald Parkway, Suite 100, Cleveland, OH 44135 or submitted via the project’s website, www.KSUAirportPlan.com. Those unable to attend can view the meeting materials via the project website after the meeting has concluded.

In 2004, the airport completed a master plan, which was then updated in 2006. At that time, the university was considering closing the airport and moving operations to another nearby airport. University leaders are now reassessing the recommendations of the previous plan, and a new plan is required to take a fresh look at the airport’s assets and determine its needs.

Kent State has owned the public-use, general aviation airport since 1942 and uses the facility to support its Aeronautics Program, one of 32 accredited aviation education programs worldwide. The airport is a critical asset for the Aeronautics Program, which serves students in five areas of concentration under the Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautics. Due in part to the increase in demand for airline pilots, the forecast for enrollment for Kent State’s Aeronautics Program saw its program grow 150 percent from 2005 to 2012 and now projects enrollment to grow from its current 638 students to more than 1,100 by 2022. 

Kent State’s Flight Training Program is the only one of its kind, not only in Ohio but in the northeastern U.S. region, and the cost to students is affordable when compared to similar programs.

The airport is a significant economic driver locally, supporting not only the university’s Aeronautics Program, but also local businesses, community services and private pilots. The new master plan must take into account how the airport can best serve the needs of all members of the community.

For more information about the development of the master plan, visit www.KSUAirportPlan.com.

Kent State’s School of Library and Information Science Receives Institute for Museum and Library Studies Grant

Kent State University’s School of Library
and Information Science has received a
grant that will fund a research assistant
position from fall 2014 to fall 2016 to work
under the supervision of Marcia Zeng,
Ph.D.

Kent State University’s School of Library and Information Science has received a $72,075 sub-grant for the Linked Data for Professional Education (LD4PE) project funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Studies (IMLS) National Leadership Grants for Libraries, under the category of “Advancing Digital Resources."

Kent State’s portion is part of an overall $250,000 award shared with the University of Washington (lead) to advance library and archives practice by addressing challenges in the field and by testing and evaluating innovations. Other partners include Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), Sungkyunkwan University Institute of Information and Management (Korea), OCLC, Elsevier, Access Innovations and Synaptica.

A press release from the University of Washington states that the grant will lead the development of an “online Linked Data Exploratorium to provide students, professionals and instructors in the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) field with structured access to learning resources about Linked Data technology. Learning resources elucidating specific professional competencies will be described and indexed according to skills and knowledge, and will be clustered for discovery.”

At Kent State, the grant will fund a research assistant position from fall 2014 to fall 2016 to work under the supervision of Marcia Zeng, Ph.D., professor in Kent State’s School of Library and Information Science, to identify and maintain a pool of interested Linked Data learning objects, create metadata descriptions, design and test workflow for Microtutorials, and test and improve the interface for accessing Microtutorials via Learning Objectives.

“Libraries are changing to meet the evolving learning, social and informational landscapes of their communities," says Susan H. Hildreth, director of the Institute for Museum and Library Studies. "These grants reflect truly creative thinking by library and archive professionals — along with their university, professional association and local government partners — that will ensure the continued role of libraries as community anchors for generations to come.”

National Leadership Grants for Libraries support projects that address challenges faced by the library and archive fields. Successful projects have the potential to improve library services nationwide. Grantees generate results such as new tools, research findings, models, services, practices or alliances that can be widely used, adapted, scaled or replicated to extend the benefits of federal investment. The projects were selected from 212 applications, requesting more than $14.6 million and matched with $7,154,135 in nonfederal funds. The Institute for Museum and Library Studies awarded grants for 51 library projects, totaling $9,292,441.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 35,000 museums. Its mission is to inspire libraries and museums to advance innovation, lifelong learning, and cultural and civic engagement. Its grant making, policy development and research help libraries and museums deliver valuable services that make it possible for communities and individuals to thrive. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov.

For more information about Kent State’s School of Library and Information Science, visit www.kent.edu/slis.

Kent State Student Organizations Promote Sustainability

Kent State University Environmental Society students
empower change on campus and in the community during
Campus Sustainability Day by pledging to buy products that
use sustainable palm oil.

Sustainability-based student organizations at Kent State University aim to promote conservation on campus. Here’s what they are doing this year.

Biology Club

The Kent State Biology Club, open to any students interested in biology, concentrates on various topics, including conservation and zoology. This year, they are partnering with the Environmental Society to bring awareness to recycling. They speak to students about sustainable habits they can employ at home or in their residence halls. They have been working with the Greenhouse to recycle glass cups and tiles to make terrariums and tiles with plants to sell them on campus this December. For more information about the Biology Club, visit www.facebook.com/groups/ksuzoocon or www.kent.edu/csi/organizations/educational/biology-club.cfm.

CRICK (Cuyahoga Watershed Research Information and Conservation at Kent State)

CRICK is an organization on campus that works with the Center for Ecology and Natural Resource Sustainability (CENRS) to “unite students, faculty and environmental leaders from multiple disciplines for the purpose of engaging in research on the Cuyahoga River Watershed.” The group participates in restoration projects, workshops and meetings. For more information, visit www.facebook.com/groups/CRICKKENT or http://crickkent.webs.com.

Environmental Conservation Group

The Environmental Conservation Group, starting in spring 2014, focuses on aiding and hosting environmental conservation projects on campus and in the community. This semester, they aided the faculty from the Department of Biology and the Herrick Conservatory in removing an invasive buckthorn in the wetland area between Eastway Center and Henderson Hall. They are in the process of planning new projects for the spring semester. For more information about the Environmental Conservation Group, visit www.kentwired.com/ksubuzz/article_efa52d70-afbf-11e3-949b-0017a43b2370.html?mode=jqm.

Kent Interhall Council

Kent Interhall Council is a residence hall association that unites individual hall councils on campus to create a structured environment for residents. Although the group is not focused on sustainability, it advocates several sustainability programs. This fall, the association will partner with Residence Services to promote “Do it in the Dark,” which reminds students to conserve energy in their residence halls. In the spring, they will partner for RecycleMania, which is a recycling competition between universities across the country. For more information about Kent Interhall Council, visit http://kic.kent.edu/.

Kent State Environmental Society

The Kent State Environmental Society is a new 2014-2015 student organization that is centered on education, activism and raising awareness of global and local environmental issues. The organization aims to get students involved in activities such as river cleanups, recycling drives, energy conservation on campus and more. This semester they participated in the National Public Lands Day Cuyahoga River Cleanup. They have had experts come in and speak on topics such as permaculture and recycling. The organization is trying to raise awareness of the palm oil crisis, which involves the deforestation of orangutan habitat and hopes to raise enough money to adopt an orphaned orangutan. Find the Kent State Environmental Society online at http://ksuenvironmentalsociety.wordpress.com, Facebook at www.facebook.com/groups/ksuenvironmentalsociety and Twitter at https://twitter.com/ksuenvironment.

Kent State Ocean Motion

Ocean Motion is a new 2014-2015 student organization that concentrates on education, awareness and action in order to impart a sense of social and environmental responsibility in life both at home and on campus. Next semester, their goal is to incorporate their faculty advisor’s research on harmful algal blooms into the club, giving the students hands-on experience. For more information about Kent State Ocean Motion, find the group on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ksuoceanmotion and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KSUOceanMotion.

Net Impact

Kent State’s local Net Impact chapter for graduate students is housed in the College of Business Administration. According to the organization’s website, Net Impact works “for a sustainable future” by “empowering a new generation to use their careers to drive transformational change in the workplace and the world.” Members go on business tours, volunteer, listen to guest speakers, go to sustainability conferences and participate in fundraisers. For more information, visit www.kent.edu/business/StudentOrgs/netimpact/index.cfm.

U.S. Green Building Council Student Chapter (USGBC)

USGBC’s local Kent chapter strives to “educate members about green building and sustainable technologies, encouraging the community to be more sustainability minded.” The group had an architectural focus but accepts students of any major. Members volunteer, listen to guest speakers and tour colleges and buildings. For more information about USGBC, visit www2.kent.edu/csi/organizations/academic/kent-state-university-usgbc.cfm or find it on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/USGBC-Students-Kent-State-University/198336493529751.